


sick in your presence

by Anonymous



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV), The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Crack, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Demons Are Assholes, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, M/M, Richard Nixon Bashing, Shawn POV, Voyeurism, Weirdness, general bad place awfulness, mentions of bodily fluids, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:40:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22229560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Shawn has a strange pastime.
Relationships: Kevin Cozner & Shawn (The Good Place), Kevin Cozner/Ray Holt
Comments: 4
Kudos: 74
Collections: Anonymous





	sick in your presence

It wasn’t Shawn’s fault that everyone working in the Bad Place except him had shit for brains. So he didn’t understand why he always got the blame when things went wrong – and things went wrong all the time now, ever since that class A moron Michael had decided that torture needed to be more _creative_. Ugh, the word alone. It left the faint aftertaste of pumpkin spice latte and unpaid phone bills in his mouth.

Anyway, Shawn had stuck hot pokers into humans’ orifices for millennia and it had worked just _fine_ , thank you very much, what else would be the point of all those gross slippery holes human bodies had? You put stuff in there. Clearly.

Shawn hadn’t been promoted to upper management for nothing. He’d written the book on butt-focused torture strategies and in one inspired torture session had shoved said book straight up Samuel Johnson’s ass. It had been a major success.

However, it wasn’t enough to make Employee of the Bearimy every once in a while, if you wanted to survive in Bad Place management, you needed to keep delivering the goods in Jeremy and also Tuesdays and sometimes July, everyone knew that. The pressure was always on.

Shawn had a secret ritual for days when it all got too stupid and annoying. First, he ordered a bag of popcorn from Bad Janet, who tore her eyes off her phone for a split second to fix certain parts of his skinsuit with a pointed glare. “Are you sure?” she drawled, pausing to pop her pink bubble gum. ‘Cause your butt is already _so_ huge and flabby.”

Shawn narrowed his eyes and held out his hand. “Popcorn,” he growled. 

“Ugh, fine, whatever.” Rolling her eyes, Bad Janet took one hand off her phone. Accompanied by the trademark Janet sound, a bag of popcorn appeared on her open palm. “Here you go,” she said, all fake-sweetness, “please choke on it.”

Shawn grabbed his popcorn. Like all Bad Place popcorn, it was sixty percent unpopped kernels and thirty-eight percent maggots, neither sugared nor salted, but there was always one large rock-hard mass of sugar and salt melted into burned butter somewhere near the bottom of the bag. Shawn was looking forward to sucking on it later.

“Now get lost,” he said.

This time Bad Janet didn’t look up from her phone, she simply popped into her void, her cheap nails tapping away on the screen as she went.

Shawn let out a long-suffering sigh, then waited another beat to make sure he truly was alone in his windowless grey office. From outside his closed door he could hear the usual Bad Place Management Department noises – yelling at incompetent assistants, cursing at the ever jammed or out of toner copy machines, the occasional _slap_ of a manager expressing his appreciation for a secretary’s bottom – but no footsteps approaching, no sign of an annoying Vicky or Glenn on their way to spew an endless stream of stupidity at him.

Quickly, Shawn walked over to his desk. Step two was to retrieve the device from its hiding place. He unlocked the middle drawer and pushed aside the old torture reports on top. He frowned when a stray nostril wasp came tumbling out of one of the files. It was still alive, shaking out its wings somewhat drunkenly, then proceeded to crawl in a circle to get its bearings and make sense of its surroundings. Finally, it raised its little head to look up at him, specifically at his nostrils.

“Don’t. Even. Think. About it.”

As it took off, the wasp managed to produce a low buzz that somehow sounded hurt. Shawn made sure it actually left the room through the keyhole in his door before he pulled the translucent rectangle out from the bottom of the drawer. 

R&D had called it the Window to Earth when they’d first presented it to him. Shawn had been mildly impressed back then but had feigned boredom. “Hmmm, so it’s like a transparent manhole-cover. We can watch the sewage ooze in earth time? I guess there could be some use to that.” He’d shrugged and walked on to the next booth advertising the new fingernail curling iron. But later he’d circled back, intrigued despite himself.

It turned out the WTE was alright for torturing purposes. After they’d gifted him the prototype, Shawn had taken it for a spin a couple of times. Finetuning it was tricky of course, with the strange linearity of earth time, but being able to show the newly deceased their drab, boring, deserted funerals made up for some of the hassle. Plus, he could always count on getting a good session out of using it on any of the dead American presidents. One glimpse into the current White House had nearly all of them rolling on the floor in agony. Except Nixon, naturally, but then Nixon was notoriously difficult to torture. His nostrils were so big the wasps got lost in them, and there was barely anything to flatten with the penis flattener – in a moment of frustration they’d tried it on his fingers, but it just wasn’t the same.

Anyway, Shawn had gotten some use out of the WTE, which meant he didn’t have to cocoon any of the R&D jerks for a while, so he could cocoon them for fun if he felt like it without that annoying feeling of obligation to strike fear into their shitty little hearts.

He tucked the WTE under his arm and walked into a corner of his office. There was very little privacy to be had in the Bad Place, but unlike the other losers around him Shawn had his own way of getting what he wanted. He took a deep breath, already feeling that special little prickle of excitement he only used to get before trying out a new torture strategy on someone truly vile, and, with a sharp jerk of his free hand, zipped himself into his cocoon.

Engulfed in his own cool goo, Shawn finally relaxed. He took a deep breath, the thick, viscous matter filling his nostrils. There was just enough room inside the glistening chrysalis for him to carefully shift the WTE up from under his elbow until it stuck to the wall in front of his face. With a snap of his fingers he turned the device on. The screen flickered to life and, smiling the sort of smile he usually reserved for moments of inflicting pure agony, Shawn scooped the first handful of popcorn into his mouth. He loved how the goo made the maggots extra slippery.

***

“This dirtbag was a professor for 18th century English literature,” Shawn snarled, “and all you infected hangnails can think of is to throw him to toxic masculinity and their endless frat keg parties? Newsflash, one of the reasons he’s here is because he used to call his female grad students ʻsweetheartʼ while trying to cop a feel. He went to those kinds of parties all the time when he was young. What are we? Some kind of relive the horny days of your youth foundation?” The mere thought made him shudder.

“I also bit him,” Glenn piped up, earning himself a death glare. The demons sitting next to Glenn scooted away.

“What?” he all but whimpered, “He hated it.”

“ _You,”_ spat Shawn. He paused to let the pathetic sacks of pus around him stew in their fear for a few seconds. “Are to torture what E.L. James is to literature. Urgh, do I have to do _everything_ myself?”

Of course, the answer was yes. It always was.

So, Shawn marched into the frat party to collect Professor Stephen Milford. He found him sitting in a corner, ogling a crying young woman in a cheerleader outfit. Shawn recognized her. She’d recently been trampled to death during an anti-abortion rally. He had to grudgingly admit that at least for this one his staff hadn’t bungled the torture plan too badly. She looked devastated, clutching her chastity ring while trying to fight off two of the toxic masculinity jerks. Shawn nodded to them in passing.

When he entered Milford’s field of vision, the old man perked up and hopped to his feet.

“Cozner!” he called.

Shawn did not care for the relief in the professor’s voice nor the word he didn’t understand. Cozner? Was that some kind of dumb human slang for something? An abbreviation maybe? Lazy humans loved abbreviations… Cock something? Cock nuzzler? Shawn made a mental note to try it on one of his dimwitted underlings in the near future.

Meanwhile the professor had reached him. He put a hand on Shawn’s arm. Shawn almost recoiled from the warm, disgustingly human touch. He glared at the offending appendage. The human, however, was oblivious and started babbling as though he was talking to an old acquaintance.

“I seem to be quite lost. Why, I don’t recognize any of these students! Are they from your department? There was this one… person. He must have been a visiting professor – perhaps a mathematician… probably European – he had that look, you know – anyway, I’m fairly certain he – well, he bit me!”

Great, so his department of failed substitute teachers hadn’t told this wrinkly old fart anything.

“You’re dead,” Shawn announced, grabbing the human by the scruff of his neck and dragging him through the crowd of drunk toxic masculinity meatheads, “and guess what? You _sucked._ So, you’re in the Bad Place now and I get to torture you. For the rest of your existence, which will be unending and terrible.”

“What? I don’t understand! Professor Cozner?!”

***

The human was still complaining by the time Shawn had reached their destination. Shawn pulled him into his office and threw him at the extra uncomfortable chair he had for visitors. It was creaky and one of its legs was slightly shorter than the others as well.

“This is an outrage! How dare you treat me this way? And after I put in a good word for you! He may be a fruit, I said to Wesley—”

“Ugh. Shut. Up.” At some point Shawn had realized that the old guy was mistaking him for one of the puny humans he’d met in his life. This might have been amusing, even interesting if it had been someone close to him, but it seemed that this Professor Cozner was merely a casual acquaintance.

The deceased professor blinked at him from behind his thick glasses. He had dark, beady eyes like a pig.

Shawn fixed him with a withering stare. “For the last time, I’m not Professor Cozner. My name is Shawn. I’m a demon.”

“What?” the old man whimpered.

“I told you. You’re dead. And since you were pretty much a swollen hemorrhoid all your life, you get to be tortured. It’s gonna be awesome. For me. For you it’s gonna suck. Real bad.” Shawn grinned. He liked this part.

Humans’ faces when the reality of their situation began to sink in were priceless. This one was no exception. His mouth hung half-open, his eyes were wet, blinking rapidly, skin pale, and for the first time since they had met, the professor was at a loss for words.

Shawn chuckled.

“Let’s take a look at your funeral, shall we.” This had become a nice warmup when dealing with a certain type of person. As an academic, Milford had been obsessed with his reputation, his research, his contribution to his field and how he would be remembered.

Shawn put the WTE on his desk and let himself drop into his chair opposite the old man. When the device came to life, Milford looked down at the screen.

The usual boring scene played out. A few people dressed in black sitting in a church. The priest gave a cookie cutter eulogy about Milford’s achievements and his wife and children, who were sitting in the front row, their eyes completely dry. 

“Wow,” Shawn said, “this is really pathetic. Congrats, nerd.”

Milford looked appropriately miserable.

When Shawn glanced back down at the screen, something caught his eye.

 _Someone_ caught his eye.

Sitting in the second to last row, he saw a very familiar figure.

“Wait a second,” he murmured.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not talking to you,” Shawn snapped without raising his gaze. He stabbed a finger at the device, pausing the transmission, and zoomed in.

He blinked.

He was sitting there, dressed in a black suit, hands folded in his lap.

“That’s you,” the stupid human blurted out.

“No,” Shawn said, fascinated despite himself, “that’s the blueprint.”

***

When he’d ordered his skinsuit, Shawn had had a very clear idea of what he wanted. He wasn’t one of those demons who wrote _your mom_ on the form for the Department for Human Appearance. Belonging to neither the Good Place nor the Bad Place, the designers didn’t respond to taunts anyway and Shawn had studied the behavior of the walking urine dispensers also known as humans long enough to understand that appearance was crucial.

The first two things he had written on his form had therefore been _white_ and _male_. Those two features where most important. However, it was not enough to be one or the other, he needed both. Definitely. For a while he’d thought about going with a young football player type, but then he’d reconsidered and opted for mid-forties instead. White guys of a certain age could get away with anything as long as they wore a suit and looked respectable.

 _Think actor most likely to be cast as high-ranking Nazi bureaucrat in an exploitative holocaust production_ , he’d written in the section for optional specifications.

The result had pleased him – as much as anything human-looking could please him anyway.

Skinsuit design and manufacture was its own science. As a demon, Shawn did not know too much about it. Demons were not supposed to be able to make their own skinsuits after all, but he had known that they were usually based on an existing human. Existing human meaning a human that had existed, was existing or would exist at some point in stupid linear Earth time.

But to actually stumble across the blueprint at the moment of time when it was almost the exact age as Shawn’s skinsuit was surprising.

And despite himself, his curiosity was piqued.

***

It turned out that the human called Professor Kevin Cozner was an especially stupid member of his turd species. He was white and male, healthy, born into an affluent family in a first world country. His life should have been the smoothest of smooth rides. Except that at a young age, he had apparently decided to be homosexual.

Which would not have been so bad if he had done the smart thing and married one of the insipid girls from the country club his parents kept introducing him to and had his fun on the side. The human, however, chose to do the dumb thing.

He told everyone he was gay and married a black man.

It was _so_ stupid.

***

Today, the blueprint was standing in the kitchen, wearing a ridiculous apron because he was a huge nerd, and chopping an onion. Shawn slipped some popcorn into his mouth. The scene was familiar and predictable. This was something the blueprint did frequently.

Shawn watched what looked disturbingly like his own body go through the motions of preparing a gross human meal. Just looking at fresh vegetables made his lip curl in revulsion. He chewed on a burnt popcorn kernel and almost gagged when the blueprint grabbed a big, juicy tomato.

Maybe he’d accidentally cut off a finger with that big knife he had, Shawn hoped. That’d be fun.

Of course, it didn’t happen. Instead there was the sound of the front door opening and closing. The blueprint turned to look over his shoulder, that expression on his face that Shawn found impossible to copy. Whatever he tried, it seemed like his face, though technically the same face, lacked the required muscles or something. It wasn’t even a big, complicated expression – as a matter of fact, the blueprint did not seem to have mastered the big, complicated expressions Shawn liked to use, like the evil grin or the sardonic smirk or the one he liked to call pure schadenfreude – it was just the smallest upward quirk of the corners of his mouth combined with, Shawn couldn’t even properly describe it, but it was like a tiny light had been switched on behind the blueprint’s eyes. It was pretty blergh.

The sound of the door was immediately followed by the clicking of nails on the floor and the faint jingling of dog tags as their fat little dog ran to greet its owner. Shawn disliked the dog because it was cute and named after cheese and never pissed on anything it wasn’t supposed to piss on. In his opinion, it was in desperate need of a good kicking. Like pretty much all dogs, especially puppies, but also especially the old ones who had been good dogs all their lives. Great, now he had a craving to kick a retired police dog and no way to fulfill it because there were no dogs in the Bad Place.

“Raymond?” the blueprint called, his voice, too, was difficult to copy for Shawn. It was disgustingly… gentle. “You’re early. Dinner will be ready in approximately 37 minutes.”

The husband walked stiffly into the kitchen. He ignored the dog, put a hand on the small of the blueprint’s back and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. No matter how often he watched it, Shawn never got used to seeing a human touch him so casually – of course, it wasn’t him, but still. And the way the blueprint leaned into the touch was all wrong too.

“I’m sorry, Kevin, I won’t be able to join you for dinner tonight.”

“Oh?” the blueprint raised an eyebrow. “Why not?” He still had the large knife in one hand. Shawn hoped there would be a stabbing.

“I have diarrhea,” the husband said gravely. Shawn perked up; he liked diarrhea.

“Oh.” The blueprint put down his knife.

The husband nodded. He withdrew his hand and stepped towards the door. “I will be in the bathroom upstairs. Could you do me a favor?”

“Of course, what do you need?”

“Could you please stay down here for the time being? I do not want you to witness this.”

 _Oh,_ Shawn thought, smiling to himself, _noisy diarrhea!_ That was his favorite kind of diarrhea.

“Oh dear,” breathed the blueprint.

Unfortunately, Shawn did not get to see any of the actual diarrhea, instead he had to watch the blueprint finish his cooking – _yuk_ – then tidy up the kitchen – _also yuk_ – before making tea and putting it on a tray to carry upstairs.

***

Upstairs, the blueprint stepped into the bedroom and Shawn tensed. He disliked bedroom scenes. They made him feel… _weird_. Not at all like the stuff that aired on the Bad Place version of the Disney Channel – all hardcore porn all the time, except everyone started out wearing one of those huge mascot costumes, which Shawn found mildly amusing – just… _weird_ and _uncomfortable._ He’d never felt uncomfortable before using the WTE. Anyway, he didn’t like thinking about it.

So, he watched with caution as his blueprint rapped his knuckles against the doorframe, tray balanced on one hand.

“Are you feeling any better?”

There was only a vague moan from the bed where the husband lay on his back, sweaty and miserable.

The blueprint walked up to the bed and sat down. He placed the tray on the bedside table and picked up the mug. “I’ve made you some chamomile tea,” he said, touching his husband’s shoulder with his free hand.

“Thank you, dear,” the husband mumbled.

“Should I call the doctor?”

“That will not be necessary. I am well aware of the source of my suffering.” There was a moment of expectant silence, in which Shawn put a handful of gooey popcorn into his mouth. “Detective Santiago has poisoned me,” the husband said gravely.

Detective Santiago sounded like a cool dude. Human or not, Shawn could respect a good poisoning.

“What? I’m afraid I don’t quite follow.”

“Street. Meat. We were on a stakeout together and she convinced me to forgo my nutrition bricks in favor of what I now know was _spoiled_ meat sold by a vendor on the street.”

 _She?_ Shawn thought. Respect instantly gone.

“It rhymes but,” the husband continued, “let me tell you, the results are far from poetic. On that note, I would advise you to use the downstairs bathroom for the foreseeable future. We may have to remodel this one up here – or perhaps burn it to the ground.”

“Oh my.” The blueprint rubbed his husband’s shoulder. “Poor Detective Santiago, she must be mortified.”

“Poor Santiago? Kevin…” groaned the husband. “I could have had whole wheat no flavor!”

“Oh, those are my favorites! They have such a rich texture.”

“I know. And now all I have is _violent_ diarrhea.”

“Drink some tea, dear,” the blueprint said, wrinkling his nose. Shawn would have liked to hear more about that diarrhea but instead he had to watch the blueprint help his husband sit up against the headboard of the bed and hold his mug for him while he sipped. _Disgusting._

“Would you like me to give you a stomach massage?”

The husband narrowed his eyes. “A stomach massage? Kevin, is this an attempt at… _seduction_?”

Shawn’s hand froze inside his bag of popcorn. A maggot squirmed against his fingers.

The blueprint sighed. “Yes, Raymond, because nothing puts me in the mood like the words _violent diarrhea_ ,” he said.

Shawn didn’t move. He prepared himself to end the session. Silence stretched between the two on the bed.

After a few seconds, the blueprint blinked. “I apologize. That was sarcasm. I was trying my hand at humor.”

“Oh. No. I see what you did there. You said something in a tone of voice that was meant to convey that the _opposite_ of what you said was true.” The husband chuckled, sounding relieved.

“Yes, I’m sorry, I’m still nowhere near your level when it comes to humor.”

“No,” the husband said, reaching for the other man to draw him close, “it was _hilarious_.”

Shawn gulped. He hated these kinds of parts. The look on his face—

“Oh, you’re too kind,” Kevin said as he lay on his side, slipped his arm around his husband’s middle and started to rub circles on his stomach.

Shawn was approaching his limit.

The husband snuggled close and turned his face into the blueprint’s neck. “I love you, Kevin.”

There it was, that expression. Seeing it on a face that looked like his was too much.

 _I love you as well, Raymond_ echoing in his ears, Shawn unzipped his cocoon and bolted from the WTE, gagging all the way to his desk. He shook himself like a wet dog, goo flying off him and dripping down his walls. It didn’t matter, as the fluid, unable to exist outside of his chrysalis, quickly melted into nothing.

“Wuargh,” Shawn said, spitting popcorn on the floor. Why did he keep doing this? Why did he keep coming back for more?

There was something rotten about the joy he derived from watching the blueprint, Shawn knew that. But then he was a demon, so rotten was good, right?

He could lean back, relax, enjoy his popcorn and tune in to the pathetic human existence of Kevin Cozner, which, if nothing else, was at least a change from seeing his trillionth flattened penis.

And for all the truly stomach-turning _tenderness_ – the word alone was enough to make Shawn grit his teeth as a shudder ran through his entire body – there was always the simple truth of human existence.

There would be no happy ending.

Shawn grinned to himself. He bent down and picked the WTE up off the floor.

They would both die, most likely one of them sooner than the other. There would be grief and heartbreak and loneliness and finally, inevitably death.

And then they would come to him and Shawn would get to play with them for all eternity.

The thought caused another shudder to run through his whole body – this one unexpected and… _different_.

Shawn blinked, momentarily confused.

 _What was that_? he wondered.

It had felt… _good?_

_No._

_Had it?_

_No!_

_Had it?_

_No?_

_Had it?_

_…_

_…mmmaybe…_

Perhaps, Shawn thought, he should go and do some field research on Earth sometime.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song "Afraid" by Anavae. I listened to that song a lot while writing this, which doesn't explain why I wrote this.


End file.
